Week 3

Events of this week have been pretty awesome. To be honest nothing super exciting happened. As usual I sat in class for thirteen hours each day and felt my brain slowly descending into insanity. My district isn´t very close to be honest and this makes the 13 hours days even harder. We don´t talk much we just sit there doing our own thing until its time to go to lunch, dinner, or bed. I wish we had a little more fun to lighten the mood, but many of them are pretty strict. Our district leader is a nice guy (His name is Elder Muir) but he is pretty tight with his goals for the district even though some of us didn´t agree to those goals. To boot most of my district isn´t very patient. They want the language and all the answers in the world now. I don´t think they are very accustom to things being difficult for them. After all almost every last one of them has either a sports or academic scholarship to one college or another. (My district leader got a 35 on the ACT. It seems I get paired with people like that a lot.) Anyway they are still all good people. We did manage to have some fun yesterday by pulling pranks on one another. I personally put a sticky not on the bottom of my teacher´s computer mouse with a message that said, ” Que oso!”. (Apparently it is a phrase only used down here in Mexico City. It basically means “how awkward”, even though its direct translation is “what bear”) In addition to this prank the rest of the guys in our district flipped over the hermana´s table and stack all their stuff onto the turned over chairs. Then we put glitter into one of their books so when she opened it, it sprayed everywhere. Those stunts made the day go by a little faster and I was pretty happy about that.

Beside the Que oso phrase I have found a few other phrase that have been pretty funny.

-Que oso- “how awkward”

-Que en el mundo! – “what in the world” :this one came from one of the teacher across the hall when one of my roommates was doing something crazy, don´t remember what though.

-Me gusta afuela -” I like afuela” :basically there is a guy in our district that can´t speak to save his life. So he can into our classroom a few days ago and was goofing off. We all told him laughing to go outside which translates to “afuera” (i think that how you spell it). At any rate he yelled out as he left “me gusta afuela” and we have been joking about it ever since because afuela isn´t a word in Spanish.

– Pasa *wooop + hand motion over head- “it went *woop + hand motion over head”: this is one of my favorite line because my teacher uses it all the time to show that something that we where saying went over his head. Now every time he talks to fast in Spanish or says a word we don´t know we use this line.

– Escuchover- this is another word made up by the guy who can´t speak Spanish. It sounds like escuchar which means to listen but the elder added on “over” to make it sound like “move over or scoot-ch over”. We now us this line during lunch when we want someone to move or if someone is in our way.

Anyway those are some of the funny things I have picked up here at the CCM. I am honestly happy that I can be here and I want to you all for those awesome pictures and updates. I think Jocelyn look beautiful and I am happy that she and Alanna are doing well. I am happy that there are small miracles going on back home just as there are some ones happening here each day. I love the chance to read what each of you have to say and wish I could respond to each one of you. As it is I only have one hour. I hope you all will have a great week and remember to find the small blessing that fill each day. I love you all. Dad keep catching those dang rats. Brain and Alanna you are amazing cooks and I wish I could have some of the dinner you make here at the CCM. Ari and Nathan I hope each of you are doing well in work and preparing for Caden. Garrett and Kristen I hope things are going well with school whether you only have a little left or you are applying again. Alex don´t get into trouble and remember to destroy on what ever field, pool, or court your on. Mom…I love you and that is all that really needs to be said. Talk to you in a week.

Elder Black.

P.s I had the chance last week to go into what called TRC its a time where we have to teach lessons to real Spanish members and investigators. The experience was interesting because we couldn´t understand them at all and we messed up a ton. Better yet my companion said “esta bien” after one of the ladies we were teaching finished a story of here sister who had recovered from cancer that had spread to her entire body through a blessing. That was pretty embarrassing. It was pretty cool though to learn that she was from Oaxaca and to tell her that my brother served there. Anyway, during this same experience, just with a different lady she wrote my name as Elder Blak. I thought that was pretty funny. Oh and my teacher calls me Elder Negro sometimes.